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| Home | About | Contact | Vitamins for Schizophrenia |
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I want to complete my BA in Legal studies by the end of next summer. So this is the main goal in choosing courses. I need to take two legal studies courses this term to do that. One course is a full year course.
In this full year course, LAWS4908 I will be writing an honours essay with Neil Sargent supervising me. We have agree on a paper that questions the definition of computer crime. So that course counts as one course for both fall and winter terms.
The other legal studies course might be one looking at drugs, drug users and the state, LAWS4306B and Dawn Moore is the professor. I have read Howard Becker's the Outsiders yesterday and today because this book is one of the weeks readings for LAWS4306B. I have downloaded other weeks' readings and have browsed some of the other readings in the library. This course is a critical look at drug laws.
But instead of this law course I might try a course in international criminal law issues, LAWS4903C. I haven't decided which of these last two I will study. The international criminal law would be good to know for computer crime studies but the drug law course would also be useful as this is the most common criminal law issue I face in Canadian society. Also the laws concerning marijuana might be changed very soon so this would be a good course to follow these changes closely.
Ok that's two courses and usually what I study in terms of course load. It is also officially a full time load for a disabled student. I will need two law courses in winter one being the last half of LAWS4908, the paper and the other maybe medical issues in criminal law, like the insanity defence for instance.
But this summer I was enjoying helping teach statistics and last school year I enjoyed the people in our math department where I worked as a teachers assistant. I also borrowed and read and am reading a number of math books successfully. So I wanted to add a third course in math or statistics to my study load.
My dad and brother have now agreed that I should be supported to try a heavier course load. My argument is that I am doing great in school including a top of the class mark this summer so I should be allowed to see if I can recover fully to a full time job or study load. If I find it too much I can go back to a lower course load in January. I am very pleased with their support. But because of this I will not apply to be a teaching assistant in two departments this term. I will only try to be a TA in the math department ot the law department at the same time.
I stayed up to about 3 PM Monday from Sunday afternoon to do the tear down of the follk festival. It was good joining with the paid sound crew to move the PA and lights. Sometimes we were lifting 500 Lbs. crates. I also brought my tools and did a little bit of tear down carpentry. I also moved drums and fender amps. I put the fender amps in boxes. There was some moving of keyboards too.
I got a ride home from the lead production hand/volunteer manager of production. He was curious for some tips on managing volunteers with schizophrenia so I told him three key tips. Be calm, be firm and don't argue if someone is getting weird. I am also going to send him the URL for schizophrenia.com and schizophrenia.ca.
Later in the early afternoon I had an urgent BOD meeting at the psychiatric survivours of Ottawa where we decided who on the board would go to Toronto this September for a conference. I then came home and slept. I woke up at about 8 PM with only 7 hours sleep. I stayed up to about 2 am Tuesday then slept all morning until about 10 am.
I slept at 6 am this morning and woke up at 2 PM. I am just going to study then get ready to go to the folk festival for the tear down. I am feeling relaxed. This has been a good summer break from studies and it acheived its affect of reducing stress. I am working on Labour day but that is good because it pays at time and a half because it is a holiday.
C is feeling better but she and J did not come over this weekend. R like me worked as a volunteer on the Ottawa Folkfestival. I did this volunteering last night. Seems we didn't really get together this weekend. T and V have a house warming party in two weekends from now.
My brother helped me with some money for printer supplies. I just prepared the order with Staples using their web site. Once I get the money to my credit card I will send the order through. I will get 5000 sheets of recycled printer paper, some ink cartridges for my Mac printer, and some photo paper.
I am studying computer crime this morning. I worked on my paper on computer crime on my Linux computer using Open Office. I read from three books early this morning.
I didn't answer the whole question yet for the one reader who asked about my sleep. I do force my sleep patterns these days. I believe that those of us with busy brains like to stay up a little later than normal folk. I don't fight this anymore. I would though recommend early bed times for those just starting recovery. Also most professionals will encourage normal sleep patterns. I have yet to meet a health professional who will coach me on how to control my sleep but I have figured it out on my own.
By staying up for a longer day which happens because of more active mind but also because I am planning my sleep and wake times, by the time I have set to sleep I am tired. By allowing a different personal sleep pattern I am never having trouble sleeping anymore. I almost always drop off to sleep five to ten minutes after lieing down for sleep. I have never been prescribed sleeping pills so I don't know much about that problem. But with my busy brain in the past I had trouble falling asleep. Now I have beaten that problem.
I often start to feel tired after being awake 16 hours. By 20 hours awake I am tired and can go to sleep quite quickly. If I force myself to stay up at this point I am frazzelled and slightly accident prone, but also around the 20 hour mark or 18 hour mark I get my second wind and this is when a fresh pot of coffee or a good meal will keep me up and going for a few more hours. I rarely stay up past the 24 hour mark. By 24 hours awake I am only meditative and can talk someone's ear off. I can't read at that point but can write some very good stuff but often there are numerous spelling errors at that point. Even though I probably proof read 98% of what I write on the Internet at least once. At the moment I am writing this entry, I have been awake 13 hours.
Sleep is thus both forced in forcing myself to stay awake and forcing my self to wake up at the beginning of the day and but not forced at going to sleep but planned. That is one of the main goals of controlling ones sleep, that is by planning ahead sleep times and waking times, one does not need to wake up with only 4 hours sleep to get to work on time. I usually can plan to get 8 to 10 hours sleep. Only occassionally am I in a bind and need to get only 4-5 hours sleep.
Since my work days and times in my main job vary I can adjust as needed and need to adjust but I do this with usually a week's notice of the exact time and date of my next work shift. Of course, planning school courses also allows one to plan for three months forward at the beginning of term, but this is more like having times set in stone for each week and I still don't get to all my classes sometimes I still sleep in for school. Also at school my teaching assistant work is set for the whole three month term. I never miss these clases where I am the TA because I am being paid to be there and accept this responsiblity. A big part of that work is unscheduled marking of tests and assignments which I do at home late at night although I have a basic window of a week to get these marked the exact time is less improtant and can be adjusted within that week. Again I set for myself a limit of not marking student's work if I am frazzled or too tired. But I squeeze this marking work into the rest of my schedule when it comes up, not well in advance like the actual classes I give.
Another great help these past few years has been set socialising times each week that rarely change so I plan around this. I now plan a social group with others with schizophrenia but sometimes have to change this gathering night and that upsets my friends. I know from the mental health guide from BC for family members behaviour with those with schizophrenia that being consistent is good and also from my own experience of regular social patterns, meaning the same friends getting together on the same night each week, that this regular pattern helps recovery. In the 1990's I planned around our self help group which always met on Monday evenings. Back then, I would only choose classes or volunteer activities or other outside events that did not occur on Monday evenings. I was making sure to attend what was important namely the self help group that focused on my mental health and thus I put my recovery first. I now tend to put my socialising first and also my working life.
While certainly I have been using the Internet to get better deals on older computers, the curse is that there is always a good deal on the Internet whether I have the money to buy the thing or not. I often push our budget so that I can afford the item for sale. This is not always a positive thing. It is slightly entertaining and if I act like my own counselor or analyst I should look at what I am getting out of this on-line shopping and what it is getting out of me. In other words I need to look at the pros and cons of Internet shopping.
I did buy at the pharmacy needed things today like soup and toothpaste and was able to talk my wife into brushing her teeth after her long funk where she would not care for her teeth. I also bought toiletries.
I am hopeing to buy some school supplies soon and books for the course work I need to do. I kind of decided on doing the numerical analysis course even with its early morning lectures. This means I need a textbook and some MATHLAB software. Although they have the MATHLAB software on almost all the campus machines. I need to figure out how to use the pay printers for students. But I would like a copy of MATHLAB for home use too. But also I need to buy a legal citation guide book and a current Canadian criminal code book. If I have the extra money I will buy an annotated copy for students.
I did my three hours training at the police station tonight. It was really only about 2 hours. I felt comfortable. I felt like I could become a detective and be very smart with the job. I borrowed a book on investigations this week. I am reading the book by Demsey a former NYC poolice officer now professor of criminalistics. I am also reading a few books on cybercrime. I had today off work and will have tomorrow off as well, but I am volunteering both days. I will though help with the paper route tonight and Saturday morning. This will give me some quiet night hours to read and use my computers and the Internet. I am going to turn my Linux computer on now.
After giving my reasons for why certain courses were my choices the counselor in the disabled student's centre helped me see that taking the honours fourth year paper course would be a good choice. That leaves me to decide the other course. Most of the statistics courses are early morning. So it maybe that to take it easy I will only study law. But the counselor's basic advice was to take a mix of courses law and statistics. This seems like a good idea. Although now for the second course I am considering a philosophy course as well as law and statistics courses.
I do tend to write lengthy emails to teachers. I got my first email from a student in my tutorial group this year. This really wasn't budgeted time in my contract. Oh well like writing in this blog I find writing to be good therapy for my illness/weirdness.
I signed up for an email list that deals with Linux issues. I often get flamed there. Seems anything personal or political gets flamed there. It is sad that the so called technical community can not remain human oriented. At least on the surface this is what appears to be happening. I think it is just people with poor email etiquette generally. I am feeling rather upset at the moment because of this flame.
It seems my early morning emails push people's buttons. I know that when I come home from work I tend to be angry at people. I try not to be angry in emails.
Hi someone asked how I feel about my sleep. Tinted asked if I felt jet lag. While my dad is the jet setter and knows jet lag I trace my all-nighters and tired feelings to my first year in University studying for exams where a friend and I stayed up all night studying for our chemistry exam. It turned out my lowest science mark for the year so I think that being sleepless is bad for you generally. I have had local psychiatric activists threaten me with the hospital when they hear of me being up all night. But I tend to think of the lack of sleep in terms of chemical balances given that first year chem exam experience. I found, saying it in English terms, I feel frazzeled and nervous when I lack sleep and go around the clock. I also feel a great deal of self doubt and am aware of the more accident prone state that tired is.
I have been studying for the past 9 years mostly in night school or using televised lectures. My basic scheduling goal has been made around the sedating affect of my pills. I try not to take morning classes. But school is on a 9-5 clock generally althought the school's hours are more like 8-22. So the school is generally open 14 hours in the regular term. I have studied on this 14-10 clock for about 9 years now and worked in this clock for money for about 1 year now. I applied to do this job again this fall term. I am also considering increasing my study load this term by one course to three courses total per term. This is about 9 hours of lectures and would mean about 27-36 hours out of class study per week. My family generally do not approve of a heavier study load than two courses and the only time I have tried the three course load was in 1987 and I failed all three courses. That was before my second major psychosis and I was taking haldol regularly with cogenten(sp?). But I am generally doing very well with school right now so this maybe possible to up the load. At the moment my dad has paid for two courses so either he will also pay for the third, or I will be able to get a bursary for paying for the third. The other possibility which might be good but is unrealistic is for me to pay myself. The more likely possibility is that I only study two courses given that school is time consuming and a major stressor in my life.
I am still not completely sure of what subjects I will study this term. I have spaces in both law and in statistics courses, but will drop some of these courses later this coming week. I have been reading books to prepare for both set of courses. In fact, I am reading a medical handbook on the alcohol and drug abuse to prepare for one law course that concerns law and drug abuse and the government. Our country might be decriminalising marijuana use this year or next. The senate have reccommended marijuana use be made no longer a crime. The bill makers in the commons have been considering this for about a year now and certain election promises were made concerning this.
For statistics I have been reviewing probability and random variables. I have also made my first C++ program. This program functions to simulate a random variable. I might if I take the three statistics courses, be studying numerical analysis which is solving differential equations using MATHLAB software. I have met with the professor of this course in July. I will in another course be studying queueing theory and markov chains and have been teaching myself these in August. I have been reading an older edition of the course textbook these past three weeks. The professor for this course is the director of the school. The third course concerns multivariant analysis and is taught by a senior professor who helped me study for my three year statistics degree. I would hope to have her as a graduate supervisor too. Her field is applied statistics where my critical view of statistics helps me to figure things out. She also teaches datamining and I might take her datamining course next term. Actually if I also study three statistics courses next Winter term, I believe they are all on Monday's so would only have one day of school a week. It would be a very busy day but less than 12 hours. It would also include two 2 hour breaks. But this term the courses are early morning but using my sleep planning I seem to have gotten a schedule for my week that would work quite well for attendance and extra study but every day of the week would have about 1 hour on campus or more. This would generally mean I would only work at my main part time job on weekends. But weekends was one of the shifts that I was originally hired to work.
I have been working a job the past three and a half years in the 24-7 world. This living on a 24 hour clock has meant that I have longer days and longer nights generally. Except days like today where I have shorter days and shorter rests. Because, risperadol can be sedating, I only take it when going to sleep and this is how it is prescribed to me. So when I work a night shift I do not take my meds at 11 PM. I wait until I sleep in the morning. The longer days and night sometimes mean I take only 5 days doses in 7 days. I don't think I take more than 7 doses in 7 days. This lower level of medication 5 doses in 7 days seems ok. My doctor is aware of this issue.
I followed up on my wife's goal today to by going to the local market and buying the veggies needed for one dinner. I asked her to do my laundry which she did too. We had drinks at the 7-11. She watched Superman on TV. She was depressed later in the day and tired and did not make the dinner. She slept early. The other day she was spiting some blood and her blood sugar was very high. I had her do some walking and pushed her to do her own laundry, yesterday. She also felt feverish tonight. She is alseep now and I just going to check her medication box to see if she took her night meds. If not I will wake her up to take them.
I just checked and she took her meds and is sleeping soundly. We consulted her psych team about the blood yesterday. She should be ok but I am noteing this here. She sees our psychiatrist this week. I am also bringing her to my union picnic this week on Tuesday. She will enjoy the veggie dogs or veggie burgers.
After rereading that Cyber Careers book I set some concrete achievable goals for the day. I was also able to make sure I helped with the paper route because the delivery guy was to pay me some money this morning and did. If I had not helped him he would have forgotten to pay me. The priority goal was to get enough sleep and adjust my sleep so that I could be awake for a night shift Sunday night and my main part-time job. I can never sleep when I have been hauling newspapers and then reading them which was another goal to get caught up on reading the news. Although my first plan of sleeping after doing the paper route did not work, I did manage to sleep at 2 PM and sleep until 7 PM and wake up tired and not fully rested. So now I should now be able to stay up about 11 hours and sleep at 6 am and wake up Sunday afternoon, fully rested. Staying up on the night shift hours tonight and not working and being on a night shift time clock and working Sunday night will now be achievable. This over night time tonight not working will give me quiet study time to achieve my less important goals related to school work and union volunteering etc.. I set some specific reading goals and got them done earlier today. I also set some learning and programming goals which have not been done so will get to those after writing this entry and the next one.
I reviewed some of Morris, Mary E. S. & Massie Paul. Cyber Careers (Mountain View, CA: Sun Microsystems, 1998). I reviewed the developing one's self chapter. I did some inch pebbles for this past week in my private journal.
Because I am on night hours, I was not able to go to the local pharamacy yesterday. I might go on my bike to a 24 hour pharmacy this morning and buy vitamins and maybe some TP. The night ride might be fun. I need to phone ahead to make sure it is open. I have only been there once before late at night/early morning.
I have marked the last assignment for the students in the course I was a teaching assistant for. The teacher wanted it marked today as she is done marking their final exam. I quickly completed it fighting procrastination the whole way. I will just put the marks in a spread sheet and send it off to her this morning and then take the assignments to school early this morning.
That means I now have 2 and a half days off until a night shift on Sunday night. Then I am off work until the school term begins again and may not work until September 13th when tutorials begin again.
I have run out of vitamin C for three days now but should be able to buy some more tomorrow. I should also be able to buy some niacin and I am out of that later tonight. I had to go into my emergency supplies of vitamins. That emergency supply needs to be replentished. My wife has one week of emergency medication except for her clozapine which we can not get extra of because of blood tests needed to take that medication.
I have been encouraging my wife to eat enough vegetables everyday. I have also been counting up to five servings or more of vegetables or fruits for her and also for myself per day. Today we ate broccoli, cucumber, and lemonaid for fruits and vegetables. Yesterday, it was green, red and hot peppers. The day before, Monday it was double servings of corn and green beans plus lemonaid and tomatoes.
I took some time off my city committee volunteering today and am feeling much more relaxed. I actually had some union volunteering to do this afternoon. I checked on school books in the school book store. The books for my courses are not in the bookstore yet. I looked at new books in the library. I cam home and chatted at Yahoo. I am just going out to buy my wife ice cream but maybe I'll try to talk her out of eating ice cream. I have a Mac, a WinXP laptop and a Linux computer all running right now.
I did another three hours of volunteer training tonight. I have about 28 hours left to complete for this volunteer job. I have a two hour meeting tomorrow at city hall then I have no appointments until Sunday night when I work another night shift. I have to do some grading of assignments tonight and the next few days but this will take no more than 8 hours. I am feeling positive right now. Things are looking up even if we are completely broke. I am even going to find time to help with the newspapers three times this week.
I am more keen now on studying statistics myself than legal studies this year. I have completed the three year legal studies BA now so I am off to other things for awhile.
I usually prepare for courses by reading the textbook or course materials before the classes start. I have been getting ready for a year of statistics studies by reading some advanced literature on statistics. I tried some C++ programming of some statistics simulations on my holidays. I push myself hard on my statistics studies and don't always get much done but I seem to be getting more done right now.
I need to buy 5000 sheets of printer paper and also buy some more ink for my various printers. I need Epson 440 ink and also Epson 820 ink. I am hoping my family will buy me some of this stuff before school starts.
I just have one more assignment to mark and it should take about 8 hours no more than that maybe less. I also have no more tutoring to do until September after classes start I suppose September 9th. I have some of my main part-time job to do this coming Sunday. I might help with the newspapers a bit this week as next Sunday's work is a night shift. i like being up at night it is quieter and I can read a lot at night.
My mom finally met my wife's mom. We had tea and food with my wife's mom at her house in the country. She raises dogs. My mom drove a lot this weekend. We got some groceries on the way home. We got some vegetables at a road side stand. We also went to two grocery stores on our way into town. We ate some veggies for supper.
My wife took a nap at 7:30 this evening. She had some ice cream and pie and was having a sugar crash. My mom was worried that she would be up later at night and pacing around like I used to do and still do. My mom has been lead to believe by me and social workers at the hospital that there are symptoms in common amongst people with schizophrenia. I had to tell her that my wife sometimes naps. But she always sleeps at about 10 PM and almost never gets up at night unless to use the bathroom. My wife also always takes her medication at 10 PM and sleeps soon after that and stays alseep until the morning. She is also not a early riser generally.
So although my wife and I both have schizophrenia our sleep behaviour is not the same. Also my wife sleeps very soundly and can go to sleep with the TV in the bedroom on. I need to have quiet to get to sleep. I also need to be awake longer than 16 hours to fall asleep and generally get from 6-8 hours sleep in a normal day but also often have 10 hours or slightly more sleep if I have just had a long day of 20 or more hours awake. So my sleep and waking times are more variable and varied than my wife's. She is far more regular and fitting into normal hours than myself who chooses to work night shifts. But through years of experience and experimentation I have come to be able to adjust my sleep so that I now do not sleep in ever for work or rarely for school. I sometimes in winter 2003 and 2004 slept in for classes that were mid day classes.
This fall term I may need to be getting up at like 8 PM at night the day before, or 4 am to get to school on time as classes are for 8:30-10:00 and from 10:00-11:30. So this school term I may not have night classes, or even afternoon classes. This may help me with extra curricular community activities, so that I will be free to have meetings on any night of the week now, except Wednesday when we play role playing games.
I talked to most everyone in the immediate family today. My brother was explaining that he and my dad will support my educational pursuits regardless of my subject choice. He explained that my dad may have opinions about what I study but this doesn't mean he is really calling the shots. No I must be more mature and see that it is my choice and allow my dad to hold his opinions.
We are having a fairly relaxed holidays. We spent some time at the beach today. I am still studying while on vacation. I like reading and computing at my mom's place and her partner and I had some good computer discussions. I am on dial up here rather than high speed but for daily surfing there is not too much of a difference. It is just a little buggy sometimes with loading web pages and a little bit slower.
We have been enjoying my mom's cooking and eating well. My wife is drinking less beer too and I am smoking less.
I did some basic C++ programming today and read some statistics and some disability studies.
On Monday tomorrow my mom will meet my wife's mother for the first time.
We have our medications, food, warmth, and pleasant company. We see our psychiatrist in about a week. We both have appoinments one day apart from each other.
We are on holidays today. We are going to my mom's place in the country. We hope to swim in a lake. We are enjoyng watching the Olympic games before leaving by car.
Well again it is early in the morning and I am feeling good. I completed tutoring for the summer term yesterday. I could have worked a few more days as the students needed me but we are taking a holiday this weekend. I also completed my tutorial hours for my teaching assistant job yesterday.
Since my night shift last Saturday I have had 12 hours of work over three days, between tutoring and working as a TA. I am up early going on night shift hours again as I am working later today on the night shift. It should be quiet night shift. Then I am not back to this job for another 9 days. I have only to mark one more assignment and I am done for all my TA duties for the term. I will just need to return some stuff to the math department and I'll be done that job for the term.
I probably won't write more on this blog today as I will be sleeping for most of the rest of the morning and then getting in the right frame of mind for work tonight.
I am back to choosing law courses for the fall and winter terms at school. I tried to get a little further registering for the honours paper. The legal studies office is like other offices at departments alternately nice and then abusive. Some would find this office politics. I did not read much of my own studies today but relearned the ANOVA and practiced integrals. One student I tutor thought law was more intersting than statistics but I pointed out the connection both subjects have to the state.
I tutored integrals for two hours and two hours on ANOVA tutoring. I had a causual conversation with another student I tutor. Earlier in the day I had no time to talk to him. I am becoming popular as a math tutor for the other disabled students.
After all the working and then appliance work I feel satisfied after watching a little business TV and some headline news. I also just took 1 g of niacin and 1 g of vitamin C and 6 mg of risperadol. I am not helping with the newspaper delivery tonight. I am going on night shift hours now that I am working a night shift Thursday night. I was on night shift hours on the weekend and went back to days for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But by now Wednesday I am preparing for work Thursday night.
As I put the air conditioner in the window I needed to take apart the shelf we had there in front of the window. I rearranged eveything and we have more space now. I now have a nice set up for the TV/stereo/tapes shelf. Not a bad layout for free furniture. I really do want a clean apartment.
I also washed some dishes and cleared the counters. I ate a little food. I did the books and sent a few icq messages out to someone. I cleaned the cat litter. I set the air conditioner to turn on at 7:45 am.
I just changed the air conditioner to turn on a 9 am we are having a cool night anyways. I also just brushed my teeth.
Well I bought an old Power Mac 5200 on ebay but the seller packed it like china and thus it broke by the time it got here. This was you might remember for J. We left a broken unsafe computer in his apartment. We helped him clean out some MacDonalds bags and Sundee cups. His apartment is a real hazard. He has so much paper and it stinks of urine.
Our apartment is also a big mess. The good news today is that I arranged for R to spend the afternoon here. My wife had to go to the hospital today for her clozapine blood test but did not go in the end as we had a thunder storms today. Her assertive community treatment team worker came by and they went for a walk. But R stayed all afternoon to make sure our air conditioner was delivered. There had to be someone here. It was good because R is someone I can trust leaving in our apartment. He is the first friend in a long time I could trust like that. I made him some coffee before I left to tutor. I also put in a DVD for him to watch. He didn't drink the coffee but did get the DVD to play. I left my wife some money to buy beer for the two of them. When I got home from tutoring they were just finished drinking it all. R and I helped J get the computer to his place on the bus from the post office around 7 PM. But it was broken, as I said. Then later around 8 PM R and I installed our air conditioner. It works fine. I was so stressed out and frustrated with the computer and all the lifting but the air conditioner works and is properly installed so I am actually happy now.
I worked some six hours today. I started studying for the fall in statistics. I got the idea past my father that my choice of statistics for this year would be ok. I also talked to a school counselor who also approved of my choices saying it sounded like I was taking control of my studies. In some ways I have felt less in control during my law studies and I have always felt insecure in some ways in law studies. I have dealt with this insecurity by being angry and self absorbed. I have also learned a lot and achieved some really good grades. Yes, right now is a good time to quit while I am ahead. My statistical skills and life is blossoming.
There is a recent theory, saying that, protesting or volunteering with a political party is good for your mental health. Given that these are generally group activities it is easy to see that by being social we improve our lonley state.
I was able to get my ballot together for the Green Party of Canada Convention. I am just now in the wee hours of Monday morning with six hours of work in front of me today teaching math and statistics getting ready to go to the 7-11 and buy a stamp to mail my ballot. It is good to vote.
Indecision and ambivalance is a symptom of schizophrenia. But how common is this in the population at large? I sometimes solve this problem by applying the stressor theory of schziophrenia. I either take less work/study or balance the work/study with other activities. This term I may balance my legal studies with some statistics studies. This should reduce stress and keep me sane. My father generally speaking works to stress me out and thus he does not accept this stressor theory. I was aware of the stressor theory at a young age before becoming knowledgable about it in an intellectual way. It is just normal I feel to want to relax when one has schizophrenia.
I have about 100 hours off of my main job. That is about four days. In these four days I will work on two other jobs. I will have about 8 or 10 hours in one job and about 3 hours per day on the other job for three days. I will take time off today by staying up this morning rather than sleeping.
I am reading in criminal law, geography, statistics, alcohol studies, telecommunications history, computer security, perl, and crime mapping. I am sort of settling down to studying law and drug abuse this fall term. I will also start to write a fourth year honours paper. This paper I hope is on disablities and the law or computer crime. One of those two topics. This morning my plan for fall 2005 is to start to study for a Ph.D in sociology specializing in statistics, disability studies and criminology.
Well it seems that when I am working a Saturday night shift at my main job that I can help with the newspapers early in the morning by staying up late Friday. I did this tonight/this morning. Next week will be very busy for my math career and I have a Thursday night shift at my main job too. I might start to look into doing some more of my web master job at the end of next week.
I have had two and a half days off on my main job and was able to do 2 hours tutoring work those days and 3 hours volunteer training.
We all went to a focus group tonight put on by a social services research agency. We signed confidentiality agreements, so I won't write about the details here. We did though not gather at our apartment and instead gathered at the agencies offices tonight. We all highly enjoyed taking part.
I am helping the newspaper carrier with his route this morning. I am just on break. He does not have the money he promised me. Although he is a polio survivor he has learned in his life to exploit others with disabilites. He has used at least two people with schizophrenia and one person with a wheelchair to help him deliver the newspapers. He is really blameless as he was probably exploited earlier in the 20th century and has probably not been exposed to union knowledge or help. This seems to be one of the dangers of trying to work for people. Also he is very excited and has a high emotional affect while I help him. This is not a good situtation. But I get a free newspaper every day and that has helped me to stay informed, well read, and to do research on current legal topics and cases.
I have spent 12 hours now in training for victims services. I have 28 hours left to go then an exam and then I am certifed. I won't write too much about this work here as I have signed a confidentiality agreement.
I worked only one hour today, tutoring. Tomorrow I might work three hours tutoring. On Saturday I work 4:30 hours then 7:30 hours Sunday morning. This is the Saturday night shift. I am then working the night shift again on next Thursday and will have to miss three hours of training that night. I will also help with the newspapers on Saturday morning and maybe Friday morning.
I need to prepare for Monday's final tutorial and get ready to mark the classes final assignment. I hope to have this marked by Thursday or Friday next week.
Well I had been up early the past two days because I had to work at 6 am. Today I only tutor students but I am up at 7:30 so feel good and rested. I am organising my studies for the year. I still can't decide on statistics or legal studies courses for this school year.
I am up late on Wednesday night. The last four days I have worked nine hour shifts. Tomorrow I am only working two hours. I also managed five hours of volunteering in the past two days.
I finished a book on European Counter Terrorism. This extends from my spring course in terrorism laws. I am being so smart these days. I have some good work. I can study one on one with a professor this year. My old private law professor from last summer has agreed to supervise me in writing an honours fourth year paper this year. I got permission to study stochastic proccesses and queuing theory as well today.
I have twenty books out from the university library. I completed reading this book early yesterday morning: Goggin, Gerald & Newell, Christopher, Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in the New Media (Lanham, ML.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). I learned a lot from this book but the main message is that academics ignore disability studies which is what our law department is doing in my case.
I am again officially in fouth year law now. Again this is not an LLB but rather a BA in law. Next could be a an MA in law. I am picking a course in sentencing and a course in drugs, users and the state for the fall term.
Today's newspaper and it is a holiday today had a front page article about blawgs or blogs about law. They estimate there are only 12 blawgs in Canada but about 500 in the USA. I have used one US blawg, that is Lawrence lessig's blog about Internet law.
I bought a black dress shirt yesterday and it is proving to be a novelty for me. I also bought some DVD's concerning hacking as entertainment. I also bought my wife a music DVD of a Canadian artist. Other than that and the new bag of cat food I did not do any payday shopping. My wife though bought a lot of groceries.
I actually quit smoking for 2.5 hours now after entering the yahoo stop smoking support chat room 2.5 hours ago. My first goal was 2 hours without a smoke. Then I made the goal no more smokes today. Now my goal is to write an entry on this blog before smoking my last cigarette of the day. Oh well another loosing battle with nicotine.
I did my monthly backups again as scheduled. I actually created that order from the chaos of my computer security studies and other mess that is my life.
I am helping someone plan Mad Pride for Ottawa 2005. We are having our first planning meeting today. I will also pick up some Reboot videos I ordered at a department store. I ordered them over the Internet. The person I am meeting keeps an anti-psychiatry home page on the Internet.
I got some niacin and am back on my vitamin diet. My wife made me eggs and toast just now. I don't eat bacon anymore.
I won the diconix printer for 5$ CND on ebay. I just have to wait until Tuesday to pay for it as the seller has to send me bank details and also give me the final price. I might also buy another brand new one later this coming week.
Today I might win an old Apple 2400 printer for J.